In an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday, the Minister said farmers have been forced to quit the North East due to the level of insecurity in the region.

He said: “People talk about the price of tomato but they forget one thing; they forget that the price of tomato today is a direct result of the fact that we have lost two years harvest to Boko Haram insurgency.

“Most of the people you see riding Okada (motorcycles) in Lagos are people who would have been in the farm to produce consumable items.”

When asked if he was convinced that the tomato scarcity could be attributed to insurgency, he said: “Do you farm where there is war? We have lost two seasons of harvest in addition we have had very poor rainfall last year and this year.

These are the combined responsible for the scarcity of tomato. Go and ask economists and agriculturists, they will tell you.”

The staple has been very expensive in the last two months as a result of acute scarcity, which the federal government blamed on tuta absoluta, a pest also known as ‘tomato ebola’.

Meanwhile, several Nigerian netizens have taken to Twitter to weigh in on the statement made by the Minister.

See tweets below:

Hello Twitter..
What did I miss?
Lai Mohammed and his list?
Or Boko Haram and our tomatoes..
There’s nothing I won’t hear from dis govt sha!

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